Abstract
The interpretative sociology (verstehende Soziologie) is one of the most classical methods of sociology and used consciously or unconsciously by numerous sociologists until now. However, this method has been argued only in philosophical or philological studies, not reflectively formalized and theoretically criticized as a method of description for concrete societies. In this paper, we formalize the interpretative sociology, not with Weber's terminology but with more generalized terms of action theory, as system of axioms. Then, through examination of the system, we solve what is “interpretative sociological understanding”, and make clear its range and limits.
